Agence France-Presse Research Articles

Social networking sites' licensing terms: A cause of worry for users?

AbstractTerms of service (ToS) for social networking sites (SNS) like Instagram, Meta, X, and so on, is a clickwrap agreement that establishes a legal relationship between platform owners and users, yet probably it is the most overlooked legal agreement. The users of these sites often overlook the ToS while registering themselves on these sites and even if users (especially those with no legal background) are attempting to read them, it is difficult for them to understand because of the legal jargon. As a result, they end up signing away legal rights about which they are unaware. According to these sites' ToS, though the ownership of the user‐generated content is bestowed upon the user but the users grant to these sites “a non‐exclusive, royalty‐free, transferrable, sub‐licensable, worldwide license” and this license can be used “to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of user's content.” These sites even bestow on themselves the right to modify the content which poses challenges to the right‐holders' moral rights. The fact that these platforms can sublicense the user's work creates complexities when a user intends to grant an exclusive license of his work. There is no clarity on the language of the terms like the manner of exploiting the user's content, what happens if the sublicensing is for a wrongful purpose? The problem magnifies as there is neither explicit indication about the duration of the license nor about the territorial extent. This would suggest that these sites can get a perpetual license on the content of the users. These SNS have consumers spread worldwide but in their ToS, they have forum selection clauses that list out the courts and districts in California. This means users will be discouraged to bring a copyright suit due to the lack of an option to file a claim in their home country. The US case Agence France Presse (AFP) v. Morel helps us conclude twofold mainly there is a hope that SNS will not take ToS to shield themselves from further use of the user's work and strengthen the idea that these platforms may choose to license to their partners. Further, in 2018, the Paris Tribunal declared most clauses of Twitter “null and void” due to the nature of the license and also, because it was not in compliance with French Intellectual Property Code. This gives a faint hope for a positive shift in the legal treatment of user‐generated content. Though these sites claim to retain the sublicensing right to run their sites smoothly but the licensing is very broad and carries the possibility of many usages of the content that too without paying compensation to the user. Therefore, this paper aims to highlight and give insight into the unfair licensing terms of the most often used social networking sites and its implications.

Plurilingual Perspectives, Pluricultural Contexts

The present article is concerned with the multilingual news coverage from Agence-France Presse (AFP) about the South American country of Bolivia. Firstly, the theoretical and methodological approaches are outlined in order to characterise the plurality of contexts giving rise to AFP’s coverage of the Bolivian 2020 general elections. Secondly, an analysis is proposed that contrasts these multilingual versions in terms of framing devices and translation shifts, aiming at exploring the ways in which media stakeholders represent the Bolivian reality. Thirdly, the findings of this analysis are contextualised with reference to a cross-linguistic comparison of newspaper corpora. When comparing the Spanish, French, and English versions, the first two are found to be more aligned at the level of discourse patterns. The ultimate purpose of this case-study is to observe the presence of translation in plurilingual news settings, where the role of translators often goes unacknowledged within

Emotional Intelligence, Teamwork and Knowledge Management: A Causal Model on Public Service Motivation among Healthcare Workers in Region XI


 Purpose: Public service motivation, a pivotal factor in driving healthcare professionals to contribute to societal welfare, faces significant threats (Perry & Vandenabeele, 2015; Perry & Ritz, 2022). Globally, healthcare workers grapple with issues like staff shortages, excessive work hours, and escalating stress levels, culminating in burnout and a potential decline in service quality (Buchan, 2020; Agence France-Presse, 2021; Mendoza, 2021; Irandoost et al., 2022; Vejdani, 2021). It is for this reason that this study is conducted to establish a structural equation model of public service motivation by developing a theoretical framework explaining the relationships between various factors contributing to public service motivation, such as emotional intelligence, teamwork, and knowledge management.
 Materials and Methods: Four hundred forty three healthcare workers were selected through proportional stratified sampling. A validated and approved adapted survey questionnaire was disseminated through google form. This study was a quantitative, descriptive research project using structural equation modeling approach. Understandably, the data analysis used mean and standard deviation, Pearson r, multiple regression analysis, and structural equation modeling techniques to test the proposed theoretical framework and identify the relationships between the different constructs. IBM SPSS was utilized to analyze the data.
 Findings: The healthcare workers have a high level of emotional intelligence, teamwork, knowledge management, and public service motivation. There is a significant correlation between the exogenous and endogenous latent variables. In the context of this study on Public Service Motivation, Model 5 has been designated as the best-fit model based on rigorous statistical validation and theoretical consistency. Under emotional intelligence, Appraisal and Expression in the Self and Regulation of Emotion remained. In Teamwork, Mutual Support and Team Structure remained. In Knowledge Management, Training and Mentoring, Knowledge Capture, Incentives, Leadership, and Policies remained, and under Public Service Motivation, Self-sacrifice, and Commitment to Public Interest remained in the model. Therefore, the findings of the study would be not only for the government health care workers but for the private as well. 
 Recommendations: Healthcare workers must be provided with training programs focused on improving emotional intelligence which can equip them with the skills to understand better and manage their emotions, improving job satisfaction and motivation; regular team-building activities to enhance collaboration, improve communication, and foster a supportive work environment; and create a knowledge-sharing system, promoting continuous learning, and providing regular training updates. In addition, they must be a system to Recognize and reward healthcare professionals for their efforts and promoting a healthy work-life balance, providing mental health resources, and ensuring manageable workloads to help maintain their high motivation levels. In Portugal, it is valuable for healthcare workers to attend to training programs to capacitate them as professionals (Amaral et al., 2022). Finally, policy makers must revisit existing systems and practices on public service motivation to be able to assess what needs to be developed for policy improvement.

News of Noam: Unpacking Media Coverage of Chomsky

Media inform and obfuscate. Corporate motives influence how news is neglected, reported, and contextualized. It is informative to examine the extent to which news content varies based on source and period. As a longstanding critic of news media, and a leading public intellectual, Noam Chomsky is a worthy case study. Three author-created, corpora of news articles referencing Noam Chomsky were created. The corpora contained articles from Agence France-Presse (AFP; n = 54), The Associated Press (AP; n = 48), and the Cable News Network Wire (CNNW; n = 6), from the years 2012 to 2022. Number and length analyses, along with hypothesis tests, established the degree of similarity existing among the articles of the three news wire services and periods. Analysis of variance showed that news source was significant in terms of both the number of articles (H2), F(2,6) = 5.916, p = 0.038., and article length (H4), F(2,105) = 23.936, p = 0.000 ( = 0.05). Little commonality in content or framing was established among the three news sources or periods in terms of top words or bigrams of merit. Whereas there were differences in the absolute values and degree of change, each of the three news sources contained a slightly negative average sentiment score when using the AFINN lexicon. The results of this study, while limited to a single case, are illustrative of broader concerns and are potentially useful for those engaged in media studies, politics, rhetoric, organizational management, and the social sciences.

French and Turkish Representations of the Mediterranean: Artificial Intelligence Based Content Analysis

This paper argues that the Mediterranean imaginations of France and Turkey have served as a barometer for analyzing the level of their bilateral relations. Turkey and France have been among the region’s prominent rivals since the Middle Ages, and their level of relationship has varied over time. This article investigates key patterns that shape the direction of Turkish-French relations and presents a fundamental factor: The spatial representation of the Mediterranean. If the Mediterranean images developed by the two countries are adverse/unfavorable/conflictual, the relationship in a given era deteriorates and vice versa. This study aims to situate the contemporary Turkish and French representations of the Mediterranean through a Critical Geopolitics, and Artificial Intelligence based Content Analysis method. This paper first deals with the theoretical and methodological aspects by focusing on Critical Geopolitics and “word embedding” as a promising technique in content analysis. Second, the historical dynamics between France and Turkey will be discussed by examining the shift in the two countries’ representations of the Mediterranean. Finally, this study will shed light on how the Mediterranean representations of Turkey and France in the recent period affect contemporary bilateral relations in line with the empirical findings obtained from Agence France-Presse and Anadolu Agency

Платформи за компенсиране на дефицити в съвременната журналистика

Abstract: Contemporary journalism faces a number of problems. Shrinking independent funding. Aggressive misinformation. It is under pressure from various power centers. Journalists are forced to work under pressure with reduced staff, while at the same time providing fast, accurate and verified information to the public. The article traces the processes after the economic crisis in 2007-2013, which led to the emergence of new platforms that try to fill current gaps in the leading functions of the media - to inform, to be a public watchdog, to monitor and control the authorities. Cases from the USA and Bulgaria are examined, focusing on non-profit organizations of journalists who specialize in investigations and fact-checking. A survey was also conducted with representatives of some of these leading platforms - The Anti-Corruption Fund Bulgaria, Factchek.bg, “Check” of Agence France-Presse and “For the truth”. Keywords: journalism, media, platforms for fact-checking, investigative journalism, deficits.

The National Front and Ultraliberalism (Extract from Pharmacologie du Front National, 2013)

The National Front and Ultraliberalism (Extract from <i>Pharmacologie du Front National</i>, 2013)

Nature Is Healing

Nature Is Healing

Image of India and Pakistan in Digital Age: A Comparative Study on Tweets of International News Agencies

Pakistan and India are two important South Asian neighboring countries equipped with nuclear capabilities. Unfortunately, the checkered bilateral foreign relations history is hostile and both countries have been fought four conventional wars since 1947. Mass media plays a significant role in shaping international relations and it is considered important to study the image of nations and states to assess international standing of a nation. In present study, we explored and compare the image of Pakistan and India in the representation of tweets of international news agencies. Methodologically, we used content analysis and network analysis techniques to find out the country-issue networks in news tweets. We have designated tweets of four major news agencies;Reuters, Agence France Press, Associated Press and Xinhua related to Pakistan and India for the duration of 7 years (from 2010-2016). We found that India and Pakistan are being covered negatively in news tweets of these news agencies. However, Pakistan’s image seems more negative through lens of international news agencies as compare to India in terms of peace and conflict issues coverage. Both countries should take steps and formulate vibrant policy towards creation and dissemination of their positive image on digital media.

Reporting Bias in Coverage of Iran Protests by Global News Agencies

This study examines reporting on protests in Iran between late December 2017 and early January 2018 by global news agencies located in the United States (Associated Press [AP]), United Kingdom (Reuters), France (Agence France-Presse [AFP]), China (Xinhua), and Russia (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union [TASS]). A census of reporting on the protests ( N = 369) was content analyzed. Results demonstrate that news agencies varied considerably in their portrayal of issues defined as problems, diagnosis of causes, moral evaluations, and treatment recommendations. Reporting by Xinhua differed considerably from Western news agencies and featured a greater proportion of stories recommending maintenance of the status quo in Iran. Calls for political change received more attention in privately owned news agencies based in democratic nations. While the use of sources in news stories was generally similar across agencies, protesters were absent in reporting by state-owned agencies. Results conclude that differences in national interests and/or ownership of global news agencies may explain findings and provide insight into news reporting on foreign protest.

Connecting Extreme Heat Events to Climate Change: Media Coverage of Heat Waves and Wildfires

ABSTRACTThis research tests the popular press assumption that media are not discussing climate change in coverage of heat waves and wildfires. Change over time in English-language media coverage is assessed, from 2013 to 2018, including 37 news outlets from five countries, with the addition of Agence France-Presse and Climatewire. Mentions of climate issues increased for both types of extreme weather. Climatewire provided the highest degree of climate change issue attention. Elite, climate-specialist news outlets gave more attention to climate issues in both heat wave and wildfire reporting across the years studied. The 2013–2018 time period saw an uptick in media coverage of heat waves, particularly in Chinese English-language media.

AFP, EFE and dpa as international news agencies

While earlier news agency studies have often concentrated on Reuters in the United Kingdom (now in Canada) and on the Associated Press in the United States as the leading international news agencies, there is less up-to-date research in English on international agencies outside the Anglo-American sphere. This article intends to help bridge that research gap and to analyse the recent development of Agence France-Presse in France, EFE in Spain and Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Germany. The article uses a case study approach, employing in-depth interviews with agency representatives. The results of the analysis show that all three agencies fulfil the criteria for an international agency. However, to do so, they all not only need a large domestic market, together with linguistic and cultural markets outside their home countries, but also state support, in case of Agence France-Presse and EFE. The findings emphasize the relevance of diversification and innovation in response to the changing structure and demands of national and international markets.

The Trajectories of Creative Content Protecting Law in Indonesia: Dealing with the Challenge and Advancing the Potential

The article aims at determining the legal protection of creative content uploaded by the creators through online media as well as the challenges faced by the creators in protecting their works. This research includes descriptive normative of the legal research that describes the legal protection and the challenges faced by the creators in protecting their works. The secondary data are obtained from the case file of Agency France Presse v. Morel, Decision No. 68/HC/2005/PN.Niaga.Jkt.Pst, and Decision No. 056 PK/Pdt.Sus/2010. The collection of secondary data is done through literature study. Based on the results, it can be concluded that, first , United States copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) have accommodated the protection of the works uploaded through online media even though they have not been registered in the relevant institution as demonstrated by the case of Agence France Presse v. Morel. Second , the Indonesian copyright law has some similarities to the articles of the DMCA used in the case of AFP v. Morel. Referring to the case No. 68/HC/2005/PN.Niaga.Jkt.Pst, in the case the copyright of the infringing logo has not been registered and it is registered by a party who is not the actual creator, it is decided that the registration can be cancelled with evidence presented at the trial. Several challenges faced in protecting creative content include the contractual relationships between users and service providers, the absence of copyright registration, and the characters of user in digital media. The terms of service set by service providers usually non-exclusive licenses or royalty free in which they can utilise the works in accordance with the existing provisions. Keywords: Protection law, copyright, user-generated content, creative content, anti piracy.

The Prevalence and Severity of Underreporting Bias in Machine- and Human-Coded Data

Textual data are plagued by underreporting bias. For example, news sources often fail to report human rights violations. Cook et al. propose a multi-source estimator to gauge, and to account for, the underreporting of state repression events within human codings of news texts produced by the Agence France-Presse and Associated Press. We evaluate this estimator with Monte Carlo experiments, and then use it to compare the prevalence and seriousness of underreporting when comparable texts are machine coded and recorded in the World-Integrated Crisis Early Warning System dataset. We replicate Cook et al.’s investigation of human-coded state repression events with our machine-coded events, and validate both models against an external measure of human rights protections in Africa. We then use the Cook et al. estimator to gauge the seriousness and prevalence of underreporting in machine and human-coded event data on human rights violations in Colombia. We find in both applications that machine-coded data are as valid as human-coded data.

From the Big Three to elite news sources: a shift in international news flow in three online newspapers TheNational.ae, Nst.com.my, and Nzherald.co.nz

ABSTRACTThe rise of international news agencies in the nineteenth century advanced the globalisation process, as news was one of the first media products to be commodified for international trade. The demand for international news provided opportunities for news agencies to become wholesalers of news; this function was dominated by a handful of transnational news agencies such as the Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and Agence France-Presse (AFP). As studies have shown that, in some countries, newspapers are relying more on diverse sources for world news coverage, this research examines whether and how the Big Three news agencies still dominate international news coverage in three online newspapers from the United Arab Emirates (TheNational.ae), Malaysia (Nst.com.my), and New Zealand (Nzherald.co.nz). It further investigates how news frames and geographic proximity of news affect the use of different news courses. The findings show that the three newspapers do differ in their use of the Big Three news agencies in covering international news with Nst.com.my using news from the Big Three in significantly higher proportions than both National.ae and NZherald.co.nz. In addition, a higher proportion of news from elite sources was covered in thematic rather than in episodic news frames. When covering regional news, the newspapers rely more on their own staff to provide more relevant content to their audience than using wholesaled news content from international news agencies.

The global television news agencies and their handling of user generated content video from Syria

This article examines the role that the global television news agencies play in the handling of user generated content (UGC) video from Syria. In the almost complete absence of independent journalists, Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse are sourcing citizen videos from YouTube channels and passing it on to their clients. This article examines the verification processes that the agencies undertake to check on the veracity of this material and asks whether the agencies have abandoned independent journalism to activists. This article provides a comparative analysis of two months’ worth of UGC videos from Syria that were broadcast by the global news agencies after Russia joined the bombing campaign in Syria in late 2015. It analyses the content, verification processes and information that the agencies give their clients about this material. Through interviews with senior editors from the three organisations, questions of certainty versus probability are explored, along with ethical arguments about propaganda versus information transparency. The global news agencies are the engine drivers of international news coverage and their decisions and interpretation feed directly into the media ecology of mainstream and then alternative media.

Two Wrongs Make a Right: Addressing Underreporting in Binary Data from Multiple Sources.

Media-based event data-i.e., data comprised from reporting by media outlets-are widely used in political science research. However, events of interest (e.g., strikes, protests, conflict) are often underreported by these primary and secondary sources, producing incomplete data that risks inconsistency and bias in subsequent analysis. While general strategies exist to help ameliorate this bias, these methods do not make full use of the information often available to researchers. Specifically, much of the event data used in the social sciences is drawn from multiple, overlapping news sources (e.g., Agence France-Presse, Reuters). Therefore, we propose a novel maximum likelihood estimator that corrects for misclassification in data arising from multiple sources. In the most general formulation of our estimator, researchers can specify separate sets of predictors for the true-event model and each of the misclassification models characterizing whether a source fails to report on an event. As such, researchers are able to accurately test theories on both the causes of and reporting on an event of interest. Simulations evidence that our technique regularly out performs current strategies that either neglect misclassification, the unique features of the data-generating process, or both. We also illustrate the utility of this method with a model of repression using the Social Conflict in Africa Database.

The spread of the Kremlin’s narratives by a western news agency during the Ukraine crisis

ABSTRACTThe description of the Ukraine crisis as an ‘information war’ in recently published studies seems to suggest a belief that the Russian government’s propaganda in the crisis contributed to Russia’s swift annexation of Crimea. However, studies focusing on Russia’s state-controlled media fail to explain how Russian’s narrative spread beyond the ‘Slavic world’. This study, based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of news coverage by ITAR-TASS, Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse over two years, reveals that Russian’s narratives were internationally circulated in news stories published by a western news agency. Although this by no means suggests that the western news agency was complicit in Russia’s propaganda effort, these news stories were published on the most popular online news sites, such as Yahoo News and Huffington Post. These findings highlight the vulnerability of today’s global news gathering and distribution systems, and the rapid changes in relationships between states and corporations in the media and communications industry.

Curation challenges and opportunities: Storify as a participatory reporting tool in a journalism school newsroom

News curation tool Storify is a publication platform for journalism and news now used by diverse mainstream media, (including ABC News, The Times, Al Jazeera and The Washington Post), news wire services (Associated Press and Agence France-Presse), and news generators (the White House, United Nations and World Bank, to name a few) to curate and publish ‘social stories’ online. Within the journalism classroom, Storify is recognised as having value in enabling students to produce news stories based on social content while also challenging them to assess content, consider agendas and develop news consumption and storytelling skills (Mihailidis &amp; Cohen, 2013; Thorsen, 2013; Sacco &amp; Bossio, 2014). Its use raises issues that go to the heart of journalism ethics, including questions over repurposing of material, relationships to sources, use of non-elite or vulnerable voices, source selection and the need to check veracity. This requires educators to revisit the need for skill development in selection and verification of content. This article examines five lessons learned in the use of Storify in a journalism class newsroom as a tool to curate breaking news about the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and how these lessons have altered teaching practice.

Agencias de noticias, su constante reinvención como estrategia para enfrentar la competencia

Las agencias de noticias compiten por afianzarse como proveedoras de información y medios de comunicación de masas. Amparadas por una infraestructura tecnológica de primer nivel, Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Press y EFE constituyen referentes del sistema mediático global debido a las revolucionarias transformaciones que introducen en sus rutinas productivas, cultura profesional, géneros y estilos periodísticos; además por sus novedosas ofertas de productos y servicios. El presente artículo se centra también en las estrategias de las agencias para acercarse más a sus públicos, a partir de los convenios que establecen y del tratamiento de temáticas muy específicas. Finalmente se proponen algunas soluciones que contribuirían a la futura pervivencia de estas entidades.